The Whistleblower Is Just A Tiny Part Of The Full Story

Initial impressions

This newsletter finds it easier to believe whistleblower Edward Snowden than to believe Obama. The fellow who has exposed some of NSAs secrets seems genuinely concerned about the implications of the gargantuan data-mining efforts. His statements have an inherent plausibility and do not seem the views of a crackpot conspiracy theorist. He raises genuine ethical concerns that are relevant to any massive surveillance operation. Unlike Assange (the creepy freak) and Manning (who seems slightly stupid and gullible), this fellow makes a good impression.

The Plan:

DOJ + NSA + IRS = KGB

Islam is the enemy. All who believe it is divinely inspired get their commandments from the Koran. That hoary hoax demands perpetual war against unbelievers. Whether these or those Muslims are peaceful is not the question; whether they can ever truthfully and faithfully swear allegiance to the principles of Liberty and justice for all is what one must ask. The only possible answer to that essential question is that Muslims fear and hate the very idea that Liberty is for people of all faiths, and even for those of no faith. Muslims are therefore disqualified for US citizenship. Their faith, however lukewarm it might be, nullifies their allegiance to a nation like the USA.

A ban on Muslims is the only rational immigration policy.

(This newsletter previously called for a quarantine; that is the wrong word, as it implies the ban will be lifted after a specified length of time.)

Unconstitutional, under the first amendment? Not at all. Any religious group that denies the bedrock principles of the constitution can properly be excluded from the Republic.

I would not say that all this espionage should be stopped, along with a lot of other government security activities, but it should be *rationalized*.

At the basic level think of it as this: Just because blacks in America were oppressed as recently as 50 years ago, does not mean that “profiling” is intolerable. If done in a rational manner, it is very acceptable and efficient. The government and the courts must learn to accept this concept.

Right now, terrorism in the world is almost exclusively Muslim in origin. To pretend otherwise is madness. Therefore, while the vast majority of Muslims do not commit acts of terrorism, ALL must suffer the consequences of the bad behavior of some.

In truth, there was nothing wrong during World War II, in the US “profiling” Japanese, Germans, and Italians in the US, *except* that it did not do so rationally, but hatefully. Had Japanese-Americans, German-Americans, and Italian-Americans behaved appropriately, in word and deed, they should have no longer been suspect, unless their activities were so intertwined with those of our enemies as to utterly tarnish them.

Now this being said, the overwhelmingly vast number of Muslims in the world live in other countries. Only a very tiny number permanently reside in the US. Thus our options are very clear:

1) Prohibit further entry of Muslims to the US, except under close surveillance and for limited purposes. Overstaying a visa should result in prompt and permanent expulsion, because we knew where they were.

2) Keep Muslims in the US under supervision. This does not have to be oppressive, just intrusive. Legitimate, since by their “membership” in Islam, they are inherently suspect. Importantly, this involves only “words and deeds” considered threatening. Otherwise what they say and do is unimportant.

Granted, the problems with the US are not limited to Muslims, however, so in all fairness, other groups that deserve heightened scrutiny should include:

Chinese, with an emphasis on preventing military and industrial espionage. This is so widespread and enormous in the US today, yet receives so little attention from our intelligence agencies, that it is scandalous.

Likewise, other foreign intelligence agencies, of our enemies, and our friends, and others, as well as commercial activities, are vigorously spying on the US. This too, should be a priority of our intelligence services.

However, it is indicative of slothful inefficiency that our intelligence agencies are spying on peaceful American citizens in their daily lives. That they are ignoring rational intelligence gathering in favor of stupid minutiae is damning of their performance.

That they are technologically able to do so is no defense, as those technologies should be directed at our enemies, not us.

As such, they need vigorous reform. We are not the enemy, nor are we puppets for them to voyeuristically think they control, or whatever weird fantasies they are indulging in.

It is a good historic indicator of a government, of whatever kind, that is in decline, that it is intensely interested in minutiae, instead of tackling the big issues that government typically is supposed to handle.

A superb example is East Germany in its final years. Horrific pollution, shortages of everything, bloated bureaucracy, cultural torpor, corruption and bribery for everything, and spies everywhere. Bloated dossiers on every person in the country filled with worthless information like the routes they took to and from work, what they ate for their meals, their toilet paper (in severe shortage) consumption, etc.

After the fact it was determined that at some point, half their population had been coerced into spying on the other half.

In the final analysis, nobody wanted to overthrow the government of East Germany, because nobody wanted East Germany. It had become such a miserable nothing and such an oppressive fishbowl, that it just died. The rebuild cost West Germany several fortunes, and everything that East Germany stood for was just swept away as ashes.

Ironically, the first such nation to have perfected the rules of an oppressive surveillance state was China under its first emperor. Most of the techniques still used today by inefficient tyrannies were innovated by them. And when the first emperor died, his surveillance state died with him, because it served no purpose other than to be annoying.

What truly rankles is all the wasted resources going into this surveillance state in the US, when there *are* real enemies it could be used against. While it’s not as bad as the short lived democratic government of Russia after the last Czar, who in the middle of World War I decided to abolish the rank structure in the military; it’s about that frivolous.

Simply put: Spy on our enemies. Not us! Get back to work.

It is the aggravation of hiring somebody to do computer work for your company and they spend all day surfing porn, and posting stupidity to 4chan.

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